Sunland Baobab: The History of South Africa’s Tree Bar

For years, photographs of the Sunland baobab invited the same delighted reaction: there was a bar inside that enormous tree. Its hollow interior seemed large enough to turn a botanical curiosity into a room you could actually use.

Those images now belong to the tree’s history. Major stems collapsed in 2016–2017, making the old bar part of the tree's past rather than an attraction to visit today.

Sunland’s tree bar in historical photographs

Sunland, in South Africa’s Limpopo region, became famous for the scale of its trunk and the adapted space inside. The photographs show why it attracted so much attention: people beside it make the size understandable, while the interior adds an unexpected human use.

But an old image can keep circulating long after a landmark changes. Before adding any unusual tree or building to an itinerary, check whether the feature that made it famous still exists.

Here, the honest story is more interesting than an outdated invitation to order a drink inside a living giant.

What the research found

A 2018 study, The demise of the largest and oldest African baobabs, examined losses among exceptionally old and large trees. It drew attention to the collapse or death of major stems and trees, including famous specimens.

The study should not be simplified into a claim that all baobabs are dying or that one cause was conclusively established for every case. Observing a concerning pattern and proving its mechanism are different steps.

Tree ages also deserve care. Estimates can depend on sampled wood and the tree’s growth structure; a rounded number in a headline is not a birthday recorded in a register.

Look at the tree as more than a container

The bar story focused attention on the hollow space. Try looking instead at the archive photograph of the whole tree: the relationship between trunk and crown, the spreading branches and the scale of the ground around it.

That wider view changes the question from “what could fit inside?” to “how did this living structure develop?” It is a more rewarding way to appreciate an old tree, even without a precise age attached.

When visiting other remarkable trees, keep off exposed roots, follow barriers and avoid carving or removing material. The desire for a close photograph should not add another source of damage.

Build a better tree wish list

Choose places where access and care are clearly managed, then learn something about the species before arriving. A modest local tree can become fascinating once you notice its bark, seasonal changes or relationship with the space around it.

Our Angel Oak guide corrects another exaggerated age claim, while rainbow eucalyptus explores colour produced by changing bark.

Sunland’s archive photographs still have value. With the later history included, they become a record of something remarkable rather than a promise that time has stood still.

What the interior photographs preserve

The narrow doorway was part of the original gallery’s surprise. From outside, the trunk looked like a massive living wall; inside, furniture and a counter made the cavity legible as a room. Those everyday objects provide a useful scale reference, but they should not turn a historical photograph into a current recommendation to enter a tree or a damaged structure.

The Van Heerden family’s farm and the naturally hollow space are part of the story attached to Sunland’s old photographs. Inside, the counter and furniture make the cavity readable as a room; outside, the crown restores the scale of the tree around it. The gallery’s attraction lies in that change of perspective. The dated photographs show how the space looked and how people used it. With the later collapse understood, these are photographs of a past arrangement, not an invitation to seek out the same bar today.

A hollow also does not automatically mean that someone carved out the entire trunk. Trees can develop complicated internal spaces over their lives, and a multi-stemmed structure is not equivalent to a solid cylinder with a hole drilled through it. That distinction helps explain why a tree’s widest exterior measurement, an internal room and sampled wood ages answer different questions. The later collapse belongs beside the gallery because it changes how all three are understood.